5.  The applicant was born in 1962 in the Uzbek SSR of the Soviet Union. Since 1990 he has been living in St Petersburg, Russia. It appears that he did not acquire any nationality following the break-up of the USSR.
6.  On 19 July 2011 the police stopped the applicant for an identity check and discovered that he had no identity documents. On the same day a judge of the Sestroretsk District Court of St Petersburg found him guilty of an administrative offence under Article 18.8 of the Code of Administrative Offences (breach of residence regulations in Russia), fined him 2,000 Russian roubles (RUB) and ordered his expulsion from Russia. The court ruled that the applicant should be detained in the detention centre for aliens until his expulsion.
7.  Officers of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) interviewed and fingerprinted the applicant, who had no passport or other identity documents. He told them that he had been born in Tashkent and, prior to his arrival in Russia, had had a registered place of residence in the Tashkent Region.
8.  On 30 November 2011 the director of the detention centre for aliens asked the Embassy of Uzbekistan to issue travel documents (return certificates) to thirteen individuals, including the applicant, who were described as being Uzbek nationals. No reply was received.
9.  Further similar requests sent on 10 February, 29 March, 31 July and 11 November 2012 did not elicit any reply from the Embassy of Uzbekistan either.
10.  On 7 June 2012 counsel for the applicant sent an inquiry to the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Russia, seeking to find out whether or not the applicant had Uzbek nationality and whether he could be removed to Uzbekistan. No reply was received.
11.  On the same day counsel asked the FMS to inform him what measures had been taken with a view to expelling the applicant from Russia, whether or not his identity had been established and why the applicant had already spent more than eleven months in detention. In reply, the FMS refused to give any information, citing the law on the protection of personal data.
12.  On 14 November 2012 counsel applied to the Sestroretskiy District Court for an order discontinuing the enforcement of the expulsion order of 19 July 2011. He pointed out that the enforcement was impossible since the Uzbek authorities would not accept the applicant, who was not a national of that State.
13.  On 10 December 2012 a judge of the Sestroretskiy District Court rejected the application, without hearing the parties or the applicant. According to the judge, a failure to take measures with a view to expelling the applicant was not a ground for discontinuing the enforcement of the expulsion order. Counsel submitted an appeal, in which he complained in particular about the absence of a periodic judicial review of the applicant’s detention in breach of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention and about the State authorities’ failure to show special diligence in the conduct of the expulsion proceedings, contrary to the requirements of Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention. On 14 March 2013 a judge of the St Petersburg City Court rejected the appeal in a summary fashion.
14.  Counsel also attempted to challenge the applicant’s detention as unlawful. By decision of 26 November 2012, the Krasnoselskiy District Court of St Petersburg disallowed the complaint, finding that the decision of 19 July 2011 constituted a sufficient lawful basis for the ensuing detention. It noted in particular that the applicant would remain in custody “until his expulsion from Russia”. On 24 January 2013 the St Petersburg City Court upheld the District Court’s decision.
15.  By letter of 5 February 2013, the consular department of the Embassy of Uzbekistan informed the FMS that the applicant was not a national of Uzbekistan and could not therefore be issued with a travel document. On 25 March 2013 the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan sent a further letter to the FMS, stating that the applicant was not an Uzbek national.
16.  On 29 July 2013 the applicant was released on the basis of the expiry of the two-year time-limit for enforcement of the administrative-expulsion decision.
17.  The detention centre for aliens (Центр для содержания иностранных граждан) is located in Krasnoye Selo in St Petersburg and operated at the material time under the authority of the FMS.
18.  The centre, an eight-storey building designed to hold 176 inmates, actually accommodated no fewer than 300 people at any one time and the number rose to 400 in the summertime and during special raids.
19.  The applicant was initially held in cells 604 and 605. Each cell measured no more than ten square metres and housed five or six people. In the last ten months of his detention the applicant was held in cell 615, an eighteen-square-metre cell which he shared with four and occasionally up to seven other people.
20.  There was no sink or access to drinking water from within the cells; there was one toilet and one shower per floor which were used by approximately forty inmates.
21.  Up until March 2013 the applicant was allowed twenty to thirty minutes’ outdoor exercise once every two or three weeks in a tiny yard.
22.  The facility did not offer any meaningful activities: no television, radio, newspapers or magazines were available.